Former Homeland Secretary Tom Ridge, who served under George W Bush after the 9/11 attacks, says he is alarmed by the reach of the NSA’s surveillance program.

He told Page Six at Monday’s Homeland Security Gala at the Grand Hyatt, on NSA: “First of all, it certainly seems to me that the program has been expanded far beyond that which I was familiar with under President Bush.

“I’m still questioning the allegations thrown at my country from overseas. The open secret among countries is that everybody regardless of friend and foe is normally bringing in and trying to get as much info as they can from friend and foe.

“I think we ought to just exhale and take a look at what NSA is doing. The President has been very transparent about this. Regardless of what Snowden says or what the concern is overseas, I have the right to privacy. I don’t want NSA looking at my emails. They can look at my email train but the content is none of their business unless they have probable cause so.”

He continued, “I think we ought to just calm down, understand that there’s a lot of this going on internationally, countries trying to find out friends and foes and the different concern of the lack of transparency from the administration and beyond that still think in spite of Facebook, Linked in, social media environment, I call it the digital forevermore, we still have-maybe it’s my generation-we still have some rights to privacy that I want my government to protect.”

On Snowden: “I don’t think Snowden is a patriot. I think he has caused this country irreparable harm, but again look, I don’t think we should get all that excited about the failure of Putin to send him back to us. If we had a Russian spy, a Russian traitor who betrayed his country and the secret that kept his country safe, I don’t think we’d be in a big rush to give him back either.”